vendemus beatitudinem —

The Dealmaster’s SSDs last an extra, extra, extra long time

We'll also show you where to buy some computers to put 'em in!

Surprise Thursday Dealmaster, all up ins! It's Thursday, and I woke up this morning with deals that I am absolutely bursting to share. The fine folks at LogicBuy have been stuffing my turban overnight with savings, and we've got some neat stuff this week.

Kicking off the listing is today's Top Deal, where we're listing a "high endurance" 120GB PNY SSD. It's a quick little thing, running at SATA III speeds, but it's also notable for its 5-year warranty. Plus, the price is right: just $90, which works out to about $0.75 per raw gigabyte. Who needs an SSD? You do.

And if you don't need an SSD, then perhaps you need another computer so that you can put an SSD into it! We've got a few full systems below, including a Toshiba Qosmio gaming laptop that would greatly benefit from a quick storage subsystem—lower access latency means more frags!

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

In other words, $143 for a 120GB SSD from PNY vs. simply going to Newegg or Amazon and picking up a highly-recommended Samsung or Crucial 128GB for ~$130 or so.

+1 !! A deal with a rebate(hell) is not really much of a deal at all. In the past I have received about 70% of my rebates after being anal about the paperwork, but it is not generally worth the effort and especially not worth the waiting for months while they hold my money.

In other words, $143 for a 120GB SSD from PNY vs. simply going to Newegg or Amazon and picking up a highly-recommended Samsung or Crucial 128GB for ~$130 or so.

+1 !! A deal with a rebate(hell) is not really much of a deal at all. In the past I have received about 70% of my rebates after being anal about the paperwork, but it is not generally worth the effort and especially not worth the waiting for months while they hold my money.

Yeah, I kind of understand the anti-MIR stance. I think most of us have been burned at least once in not receiving a MIR, and thus prefer instant rebates. Though you have to admit, it's kind of cool getting a check in the mail after you've long forgotten it's coming.

In other words, $143 for a 120GB SSD from PNY vs. simply going to Newegg or Amazon and picking up a highly-recommended Samsung or Crucial 128GB for ~$130 or so.

+1 !! A deal with a rebate(hell) is not really much of a deal at all. In the past I have received about 70% of my rebates after being anal about the paperwork, but it is not generally worth the effort and especially not worth the waiting for months while they hold my money.

Yeah, I kind of understand the anti-MIR stance. I think most of us have been burned at least once in not receiving a MIR, and thus prefer instant rebates. Though you have to admit, it's kind of cool getting a check in the mail after you've long forgotten it's coming.

Yeah, I kind of understand the anti-MIR stance. I think most of us have been burned at least once in not receiving a MIR, and thus prefer instant rebates. Though you have to admit, it's kind of cool getting a check in the mail after you've long forgotten it's coming.

If so, that's scummy of Ars, especially because the article doesn't mention it.

As we've stated many, many times in comments since this series began back in October, the bit.ly links are used to assist both us and LogicBuy keep tabs on how many times the individual deal links are clicked. From that, we figure out which types of items are attracting attention, and which aren't. Bit.ly gives us far more easily accessible analytic data than any other tool that we can bring to bear.

Ars is receiving no commission or kickback or affiliate fee from the clicks or from the merchants where each of the items are sold--no one's paying me anything extra to wear this turban.

I agree. My ROI on MIR is NVG. Most rebates are done via third party which makes it nearly impossible to trace and they rely on your impulse purchase and lack of decent memory to make a tidy sum.

Funniest one, though. Via Staples, I did a MIR on some office supplies. I got two of them back, and one rejection because the type of highlighters I bought were the wrong kind. Now, they rejected me for $0.25 and sent it via first class mail. Stamps at the time were $0.39. So they lost $0.11 (plus cost of paper and processing) rejecting my claim.

Or maybe, like most people that have used mail-in rebates, (s)he knows your rebate usually gets "lost in the mail" or if you're lucky, you have to harrass customer service to receive your rebate 6 months later.

As we've stated many, many times in comments since this series began back in October, the bit.ly links are used to assist both us and LogicBuy keep tabs on how many times the individual deal links are clicked. From that, we figure out which types of items are attracting attention, and which aren't. Bit.ly gives us far more easily accessible analytic data than any other tool that we can bring to bear.

Ars is receiving no commission or kickback or affiliate fee from the clicks or from the merchants where each of the items are sold--no one's paying me anything extra to wear this turban.

As we've stated many, many times in comments since this series began back in October, the bit.ly links are used to assist both us and LogicBuy keep tabs on how many times the individual deal links are clicked. From that, we figure out which types of items are attracting attention, and which aren't. Bit.ly gives us far more easily accessible analytic data than any other tool that we can bring to bear.

Ars is receiving no commission or kickback or affiliate fee from the clicks or from the merchants where each of the items are sold--no one's paying me anything extra to wear this turban.

Okay, that sounds legit. Thanks for the clarification.

One other thing, people - I know this may come as a shock to some of you but ARSTechnica is a COMMERCIAL site! They have employees to pay, investors to satisfy, and the cost of operating this site. They are not a charity! So therefore, sorry if it offends your sensibilities, but they are in this to make money. As long as they aren't deceitful in how they do so its really unfair to jump on perceived instances of a business trying to capitalize on their resources and turn a profit. Do you work for free?!?!?

One other thing, people - I know this may come as a shock to some of you but ARSTechnica is a COMMERCIAL site! They have employees to pay, investors to satisfy, and the cost of operating this site. They are not a charity! So therefore, sorry if it offends your sensibilities, but they are in this to make money. As long as they aren't deceitful in how they do so its really unfair to jump on perceived instances of a business trying to capitalize on their resources and turn a profit. Do you work for free?!?!?

I don't know why you're being so dramatic. I understand that Ars needs money to operate - hell, I pay it every month. And it's okay if Ars tries to make a buck so long as Ars is honest about it and it doesn't degrade Ars's quality. But writing an article with affiliate links without disclosing them (and I understand that Ars didn't do this) creates a conflict of interest between being honest and trying to get people to buy things. That's why it's important to keep ads separate from articles, and it's one of the reasons Ars is so good.

the bit.ly links are used to assist both us and LogicBuy keep tabs on how many times the individual deal links are clicked.

With all due respect, that's hokey. What you need to do is set up your own redirect links instead of going through a third party service like that, at which time you can analyze the crap out of it without 1) revealing the information to a third-party provider, 2) being limited to only what that third party chooses to show you, and 3) using a service that many companies block for fear of being redirected to malicious sites. I like the Dealmaster articles, but since I block bit.ly redirects myself, I'm afraid that I've gotten to where I pass over almost all of them. Truth be known, I don't even mind throwing Ars a few pennies in commissions if you pointed me to a good deal, even though you say that's not the reason behind it. But I simply don't follow bit.ly links.

P.S. If you do set up redirect links, it would be nice to also put in parentheses after the link where it's redirecting to. Not necessarily the entire URL, but at least the domain name would be nice to assure us that we're not going to be sent off to a malware site or something.